Supporting educators through professional learning is a primary focus of Learning Forward Colorado's mission. Learning Forward Colorado event participants receive a Relicensure Credit Form at the end of each event with pertinent information and the number of clock hours received for that event. Clock hours can be converted to license renewal requirement using the following formula authorized by the Colorado Department of Education:

To offer professional learning experiences that model our values and beliefs about the learning of educators which makes a difference in student learning and school improvement, we had to examine our practices and change our organizational paradigm. Bookended learning surfaced from our own inquiry and study about how best to model the professional learning standards from Learning Forward and live what we espouse to be best practice.

Learning Forward Colorado offers a professional learning plan with a core learning experience (conference) as a centerpiece for a year of collaborative inquiry within a professional community. The professional inquiry within the community of practice or professional community constitutes the bookended learning leading up to the core learning experience and following the core learning experience. Educators interested in this year of inquiry and study establish their own designs and communities within which they engage in study and inquiry. This gives the bookended learning a meaningful context based on what is important to the educator's organization whether that organization is a school, a district, a university, a cohort, a team, a department, or a peer group.
Bookended Learning might look like either of these examples and many others:

A school leadership team engages in inquiry on teaching thinking skills across all contents and creating thinking educators as they meet monthly within the school. They study several books, examine how they might create structures to support implementation of emerging ideas, and feedback and coaching that leads up to a shared, core learning experience. Following this core learning experience, conversations within the school continue integrating new learning in their reform efforts, modifying and adjusting previous plans, and re-evaluating their efforts and what learning might be next steps.

A group of teachers engage in on-line study and conversation about creating discourse in their classrooms. They begin to examine how they are modeling and engaging in the same kind of discourse they want to create in their classrooms and how their own learning deepens their understanding of discourse and how to create and engage in meaningful conversations. They come together, face-to-face at a shared learning experience (core learning experience) to engage in deeper learning about discourse. Following the core learning experience, they continue by coaching each other to implement in their classrooms improved student discourse.